There are times when worrying about getting a blog post done seems downright silly. Times when it is hard for me to wrap my head around photographing or writing about food.

Like today.

When I woke this morning to the scenes of the devastation in Japan, I was overwhelmed. Japan is close to my heart- I have been there four times- and seeing what happened in the earthquake and tsunami was absolutely horrifying.

I cry every now and then but I don’t completely break down all that often. When I do, however, it’s not pretty. Today, the feelings of sadness from this event, as well as from sad things that have happened around me in recently, came pouring out. Sadness about an old friend who passed away suddenly this winter. Sadness about friends who are struggling in their marriage. Sadness about my best friend’s daughter/daughter’s best friend who, as of the last few months, cannot walk and doctors still do not know why. Sadness about my father in law whose health is failing. While I was at it, I even cried a few tears because sometimes the everyday realities of parenting make me sad.

I am not sure why I am telling you this. Just want you to know where I am at, I guess.

It’s honestly not in my heart to post a recipe right now, but I have to because I am the host of weekend herb blogging this week (see the bottom of this post for more details). Thankfully, I’d previously written up this recipe and snapped these photos; there’s no way I could have done it today.

I think it’s important to remember that even when you’re down; when you feel like you don’t have control over things that are going on, things that might be terrible; in other words, even when everything else seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, you still have to eat and drink, you know? And it’s best not to drown emotions (sorrow, frustration, anger or whatever the emotions may be) with a plateful of cookies…

Even when you can’t control much else, you can control what you put in your body. Fresh juice is good stuff. Full of vitamins and minerals. Nourishing.

I’ve been enjoying variations of this carrot juice combination for more than 2 decades. You need a juicer to make it. I’ve owned many over the years, but this is the one I have now and I highly recommend it.

Ingredients:

* 4 large organic carrots, tops trimmed off and cut into pieces to accomodate your juicer
* 1 medium red apple (I like Fujis), peeled if not organic, and sliced into pieces to accomodate your juicer
* 1 chunk of peeled fresh ginger (the size of your thumb if you love ginger; use less if you're not a huge fan)
* 1 small whole organic Meyer lemon, cut in half

Directions:

Process ingredients through your juicer. Stir to combine, then serve right away.

If you are interested in participating in weekend herb blogging, you can find more information here.

You can send your entries to winnie AT healthygreenkitchen DOT com
with WHB#274 in subject line with the following info: